Big Air

SoMa is looming. Looming, I tell you. It's what, 3 weeks away now? So the build has started, of course. And all week I've been chewing on today's workout: 75 mi ride and 7 mi run.

No problem, says my athlete self. I've done a half iron, I know how to do this. Sure it'll be hard, but I know I can.

This would be a fine way to talk myself through a big chunk of a workout like this - except that thing about my leg. The one with the funny IT band thing. The one that interrupted my good time at the Colorado Relay. The one where I get pulled up short after so many miles, and I can never tell one run to another what the magic number of miles will be.

Last time I had to deal with ITBS, running was a crap shoot. Sometimes I could do 2 miles, sometimes 4, sometimes 5. Sometimes the pain would start up a little and then go into the background. Other times it would start up and not stop until I stopped running.

So. Frustrating.

I learned that I need to stretch and roll on the foam roller every night - and I've been good about this ever since.

I learned that I need regular massage - I've also been good on this.

I learned that some shoes work and (to my cost) some don't. Oops.

So last week I spent most of the week doing not much (recovering from Colorado), I ran 3 miles at the end of the week and was encouraged by this. This week I was cautiously back at it. I did little bits of running through the week, stretching, icing, etc. So far OK, running wasn't too painful. Except I learned this time with ITBS, sitting on my butt makes it worse. Even worse, I have a job that keeps me sat at a desk tapping away at a computer. Oh crap. How can I heal if it hurts when I'm supposed to be recovering?

Out of desperation, I took myself for an appointment for acupuncture on Friday.

Wow! That sh*t works! I'm going back for more of that!

Right after my appointment I ran 6 miles with no pain.

Back to today's run ride combo, I had in mind to go out and see some balloons this morning, being that it's Balloon Fiesta season and all. So Dave and I suited up and headed south for a mostly-flat ride southward. It was cold, I was feeling good, but I was dreading it a bit.

We were about 12 miles into our ride having a good ol' time when we got Hijacked by a group. Roadies. I call them specialists - they just ride and they do it well. Did I mind being Hijacked? Not really - because one minute we were out there doing our own thing and then suddenly the average speed jumped up a couple miles an hour and it got really, really easy to pedal.

It occurred to me that maybe we could whip out all of those 75 miles in relative comfort.

It's been sooo long since I rode with a cohesive group in a peloton. Many of the triathletes I ride with are sort of solo-group riders, or they prefer a much higher average speed than I can maintain. This, by contrast, was fabulous: I think we were maintaining a speed of 20 mph+ at a 18 mph effort (numbers are admittedly lacking, because my Garmin was not charged this morning when I took off. I had to ride naked).

Somehow, in the last year, I got comfortable with group riding - without actually doing much true group riding. Suddenly it's not so freaky to be right up on somebody's wheel. Suddenly I got comfortable with the draft - I could hear the flutter, and I could feel the effort evaporate under my pedalstroke.

It helps a lot that the two leaders of the group were highly experienced riders - very steady, very strong - and happy to drag the rest of us around all day. It helps that I've had a lot of Time In The Saddle with a very patient teacher.

Halfway through our ride we stopped for a break and discovered that the wind had shifted in a big way. During the course of our 20 minute coke break, the wind had shifted to be directly in our faces on our return - with double digit gusts. This was some seriously Big Air that we would have to eat all the way home.

And then how much did I love the peloton? OMG. I LOOOOOVED the peloton. That wind coming back could have been a super suckfest with just two of us. Instead with a group it was totally do-able.

In the end we only ripped out 62 miles, but it was 62 reasonably hard windy miles. No shame there.

Did I follow it up with my 7 mile run?

Does the pope go doody in the woods?

Oh. Yeah. I did all 7 baby - and I survived.

OK, but now I'm reeely tired, and I want to sleep for about a week.

And eat everything.

*image was shamelessly ripped off from Balloon Fiesta's website - go check it out, pretty cool stuff!